Vacuum

This article is about empty physical space or the absence of matter. For the appliance, see vacuum cleaner. For other uses, see Vacuum (disambiguation).
"Free space" redirects here. For other uses, see Free space (disambiguation).
Pump to demonstrate vacuum

Vacuum is space void of matter. The word stems from the Latin adjective vacuus for "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure.[1] Physicists often discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they sometimes simply call "vacuum" or free space, and use the term partial vacuum to refer to an actual imperfect vacuum as one might have in a laboratory or in space. In engineering and applied physics on the other hand, vacuum refers to any space in which the pressure is lower than atmospheric pressure.[2] The Latin term in vacuo is used to describe an object as being in what would otherwise be a vacuum.

The quality of a partial vacuum refers to how closely it approaches a perfect vacuum. Other things equal, lower gas pressure means higher-quality vacuum. For example, a typical vacuum cleaner produces enough suction to reduce air pressure by around 20%.[3] Much higher-quality vacuums are possible. Ultra-high vacuum chambers, common in chemistry, physics, and engineering, operate below one trillionth (10−12) of atmospheric pressure (100 nPa), and can reach around 100 particles/cm3.[4] Outer space is an even higher-quality vacuum, with the equivalent of just a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter on average.[5] According to modern understanding, even if all matter could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, transiting gamma rays, cosmic rays, neutrinos, and other phenomena in quantum physics. In the electromagnetism in the 19th century, vacuum was thought to be filled with a medium called aether. In modern particle physics, the vacuum state is considered the ground state of matter.

Vacuum has been a frequent topic of philosophical debate since ancient Greek times, but was not studied empirically until the 17th century. Evangelista Torricelli produced the first laboratory vacuum in 1643, and other experimental techniques were developed as a result of his theories of atmospheric pressure. A torricellian vacuum is created by filling with mercury a tall glass container closed at one end and then inverting the container into a bowl to contain the mercury.[6]

Vacuum became a valuable industrial tool in the 20th century with the introduction of incandescent light bulbs and vacuum tubes, and a wide array of vacuum technology has since become available. The recent development of human spaceflight has raised interest in the impact of vacuum on human health, and on life forms in general.

A large vacuum chamber

Etymology

The word vacuum comes from Latin an empty space, void, noun use of neuter of vacuus, meaning "empty", related to vacare, meaning "be empty".

Vacuum is one of the few words in the English language that contains two consecutive letters u'.[7]

Historical interpretation

Historically, there has been much dispute over whether such a thing as a vacuum can exist. Ancient Greek philosophers debated the existence of a vacuum, or void, in the context of atomism, which posited void and atom as the fundamental explanatory elements of physics. Following Plato, even the abstract concept of a featureless void faced considerable skepticism: it could not be apprehended by the senses, it could not, itself, provide additional explanatory power beyond the physical volume with which it was commensurate and, by definition, it was quite literally nothing at all, which cannot rightly be said to exist. Aristotle believed that no void could occur naturally, because the denser surrounding material continuum would immediately fill any incipient rarity that might give rise to a void.

In his Physics, book IV, Aristotle offered numerous arguments against the void: for example, that motion through a medium which offered no impediment could continue ad infinitum, there being no reason that something would come to rest anywhere in particular. Although Lucretius argued for the existence of vacuum in the first century BC and Hero of Alexandria tried unsuccessfully to create an artificial vacuum in the first century AD,[8] it was European scholars such as Roger Bacon, Blasius of Parma and Walter Burley in the 13th and 14th century who focused considerable attention on these issues. Eventually following Stoic physics in this instance, scholars from the 14th century onward increasingly departed from the Aristotelian perspective in favor of a supernatural void beyond the confines of the cosmos itself, a conclusion widely acknowledged by the 17th century, which helped to segregate natural and theological concerns.[9]

Almost two thousand years after Plato, René Descartes also proposed a geometrically based alternative theory of atomism, without the problematic nothing–everything dichotomy of void and atom. Although Descartes agreed with the contemporary position, that a vacuum does not occur in nature, the success of his namesake coordinate system and more implicitly, the spacial–corporeal component of his metaphysics would come to define the philosophically modern notion of empty space as a quantified extension of volume. By the ancient definition however, directional information and magnitude were conceptually distinct. With the acquiescence of Cartesian mechanical philosophy to the "brute fact" of action at a distance, and at length, its successful reification by force fields and ever more sophisticated geometric structure, the anachronism of empty space widened until "a seething ferment"[10] of quantum activity in the 20th century filled the vacuum with a virtual pleroma.

The explanation of a clepsydra or water clock was a popular topic in the Middle Ages. Although a simple wine skin sufficed to demonstrate a partial vacuum, in principle, more advanced suction pumps had been developed in Roman Pompeii.[11]

In the medieval Middle Eastern world, the physicist and Islamic scholar, Al-Farabi (Alpharabius, 872–950), conducted a small experiment concerning the existence of vacuum, in which he investigated handheld plungers in water.[12] He concluded that air's volume can expand to fill available space, and he suggested that the concept of perfect vacuum was incoherent.[13] However, according to Nader El-Bizri, the physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen, 965–1039) and the Mu'tazili theologians disagreed with Aristotle and Al-Farabi, and they supported the existence of a void. Using geometry, Ibn al-Haytham mathematically demonstrated that place (al-makan) is the imagined three-dimensional void between the inner surfaces of a containing body.[14] According to Ahmad Dallal, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī also states that "there is no observable evidence that rules out the possibility of vacuum".[15] The suction pump later appeared in Europe from the 15th century.[16][17][18]

Torricelli's mercury barometer produced one of the first sustained vacuums in a laboratory.

Medieval thought experiments into the idea of a vacuum considered whether a vacuum was present, if only for an instant, between two flat plates when they were rapidly separated.[19] There was much discussion of whether the air moved in quickly enough as the plates were separated, or, as Walter Burley postulated, whether a 'celestial agent' prevented the vacuum arising. The commonly held view that nature abhorred a vacuum was called horror vacui. Speculation that even God could not create a vacuum if he wanted to was shut down by the 1277 Paris condemnations of Bishop Etienne Tempier, which required there to be no restrictions on the powers of God, which led to the conclusion that God could create a vacuum if he so wished.[20] Jean Buridan reported in the 14th century that teams of ten horses could not pull open bellows when the port was sealed.[8]

The Crookes tube, used to discover and study cathode rays, was an evolution of the Geissler tube.

The 17th century saw the first attempts to quantify measurements of partial vacuum.[21] Evangelista Torricelli's mercury barometer of 1643 and Blaise Pascal's experiments that both demonstrated a partial vacuum.

In 1654, Otto von Guericke invented the first vacuum pump[22] and conducted his famous Magdeburg hemispheres experiment, showing that teams of horses could not separate two hemispheres from which the air had been partially evacuated. Robert Boyle improved Guericke's design and with the help of Robert Hooke further developed vacuum pump technology. Thereafter, research into the partial vacuum lapsed until 1850 when August Toepler invented the Toepler Pump and Heinrich Geissler invented the mercury displacement pump in 1855, achieving a partial vacuum of about 10 Pa (0.1 Torr). A number of electrical properties become observable at this vacuum level, which renewed interest in further research.

While outer space provides the most rarefied example of a naturally occurring partial vacuum, the heavens were originally thought to be seamlessly filled by a rigid indestructible material called aether. Borrowing somewhat from the pneuma of Stoic physics, aether came to be regarded as the rarefied air from which it took its name, (see Aether (mythology)). Early theories of light posited a ubiquitous terrestrial and celestial medium through which light propagated. Additionally, the concept informed Isaac Newton's explanations of both refraction and of radiant heat.[23] 19th century experiments into this luminiferous aether attempted to detect a minute drag on the Earth's orbit. While the Earth does, in fact, move through a relatively dense medium in comparison to that of interstellar space, the drag is so minuscule that it could not be detected. In 1912, astronomer Henry Pickering commented: "While the interstellar absorbing medium may be simply the ether, [it] is characteristic of a gas, and free gaseous molecules are certainly there".[24]

In 1930, Paul Dirac proposed a model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles possessing negative energy, called the Dirac sea. This theory helped refine the predictions of his earlier formulated Dirac equation, and successfully predicted the existence of the positron, confirmed two years later. Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle formulated in 1927, predict a fundamental limit within which instantaneous position and momentum, or energy and time can be measured. This has far reaching consequences on the "emptiness" of space between particles. In the late 20th century, so-called virtual particles that arise spontaneously from empty space were confirmed.

Classical field theories

The strictest criteria to define a vacuum is a region of space and time where all the components of the stress–energy tensor are zero. It means that this region is empty of energy and momentum, and by consequence, it must be empty of particles and other physical fields (such as electromagnetism) that contain energy and momentum.

Gravity

In general relativity, a vanishing stress-energy tensor implies, through Einstein field equations, the vanishing of all the components of the Ricci tensor. Vacuum does not mean that the curvature of space-time is necessarily flat: the gravitational field can still produce curvature in a vacuum in the form of tidal forces and gravitational waves (technically, these phenomena are the components of the Weyl tensor). The black hole (with zero electric charge) is an elegant example of a region completely "filled" with vacuum, but still showing a strong curvature.

Electromagnetism

In classical electromagnetism, the vacuum of free space, or sometimes just free space or perfect vacuum, is a standard reference medium for electromagnetic effects.[25][26] Some authors refer to this reference medium as classical vacuum,[25] a terminology intended to separate this concept from QED vacuum or QCD vacuum, where vacuum fluctuations can produce transient virtual particle densities and a relative permittivity and relative permeability that are not identically unity.[27][28][29]

In the theory of classical electromagnetism, free space has the following properties:

The vacuum of classical electromagnetism can be viewed as an idealized electromagnetic medium with the constitutive relations in SI units:[35]

\boldsymbol D(\boldsymbol r,\ t) = \varepsilon_0 \boldsymbol E(\boldsymbol r,\ t)\,
\boldsymbol H(\boldsymbol r,\ t) = \frac{1}{\mu_0} \boldsymbol B(\boldsymbol r,\ t)\,

relating the electric displacement field D to the electric field E and the magnetic field or H-field H to the magnetic induction or B-field B. Here r is a spatial location and t is time.

Quantum mechanics

For more details on this topic, see QED vacuum, QCD vacuum, Vacuum state.
A video of an experiment showing vacuum fluctuations (in the red ring) amplified by spontaneous parametric down-conversion.

In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the vacuum is defined as the state (that is, the solution to the equations of the theory) with the lowest possible energy (the ground state of the Hilbert space). In quantum electrodynamics this vacuum is referred to as 'QED vacuum' to distinguish it from the vacuum of quantum chromodynamics, denoted as QCD vacuum. QED vacuum is a state with no matter particles (hence the name), and also no photons. As described above, this state is impossible to achieve experimentally. (Even if every matter particle could somehow be removed from a volume, it would be impossible to eliminate all the blackbody photons.) Nonetheless, it provides a good model for realizable vacuum, and agrees with a number of experimental observations as described next.

QED vacuum has interesting and complex properties. In QED vacuum, the electric and magnetic fields have zero average values, but their variances are not zero.[36] As a result, QED vacuum contains vacuum fluctuations (virtual particles that hop into and out of existence), and a finite energy called vacuum energy. Vacuum fluctuations are an essential and ubiquitous part of quantum field theory. Some experimentally verified effects of vacuum fluctuations include spontaneous emission and the Lamb shift.[20] Coulomb's law and the electric potential in vacuum near an electric charge are modified.[37]

Theoretically, in QCD vacuum multiple vacuum states can coexist.[38] The starting and ending of cosmological inflation is thought to have arisen from transitions between different vacuum states. For theories obtained by quantization of a classical theory, each stationary point of the energy in the configuration space gives rise to a single vacuum. String theory is believed to have a huge number of vacua — the so-called string theory landscape.

Outer space

Main article: Outer space
Outer space is not a perfect vacuum, but a tenuous plasma awash with charged particles, electromagnetic fields, and the occasional star.

Outer space has very low density and pressure, and is the closest physical approximation of a perfect vacuum. But no vacuum is truly perfect, not even in interstellar space, where there are still a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter.[5]

Stars, planets and moons keep their atmospheres by gravitational attraction, and as such, atmospheres have no clearly delineated boundary: the density of atmospheric gas simply decreases with distance from the object. The Earth's atmospheric pressure drops to about 3.2×10−2 Pa at 100 kilometres (62 mi) of altitude,[39] the Kármán line, which is a common definition of the boundary with outer space. Beyond this line, isotropic gas pressure rapidly becomes insignificant when compared to radiation pressure from the Sun and the dynamic pressure of the solar winds, so the definition of pressure becomes difficult to interpret. The thermosphere in this range has large gradients of pressure, temperature and composition, and varies greatly due to space weather. Astrophysicists prefer to use number density to describe these environments, in units of particles per cubic centimetre.

But although it meets the definition of outer space, the atmospheric density within the first few hundred kilometers above the Kármán line is still sufficient to produce significant drag on satellites. Most artificial satellites operate in this region called low Earth orbit and must fire their engines every few days to maintain orbit. The drag here is low enough that it could theoretically be overcome by radiation pressure on solar sails, a proposed propulsion system for interplanetary travel. Planets are too massive for their trajectories to be significantly affected by these forces, although their atmospheres are eroded by the solar winds.

All of the observable universe is filled with large numbers of photons, the so-called cosmic background radiation, and quite likely a correspondingly large number of neutrinos. The current temperature of this radiation is about 3 K, or −270 degrees Celsius or −454 degrees Fahrenheit.

Measurement

Main article: Pressure measurement

The quality of a vacuum is indicated by the amount of matter remaining in the system, so that a high quality vacuum is one with very little matter left in it. Vacuum is primarily measured by its absolute pressure, but a complete characterization requires further parameters, such as temperature and chemical composition. One of the most important parameters is the mean free path (MFP) of residual gases, which indicates the average distance that molecules will travel between collisions with each other. As the gas density decreases, the MFP increases, and when the MFP is longer than the chamber, pump, spacecraft, or other objects present, the continuum assumptions of fluid mechanics do not apply. This vacuum state is called high vacuum, and the study of fluid flows in this regime is called particle gas dynamics. The MFP of air at atmospheric pressure is very short, 70 nm, but at 100 mPa (~1×10−3 Torr) the MFP of room temperature air is roughly 100 mm, which is on the order of everyday objects such as vacuum tubes. The Crookes radiometer turns when the MFP is larger than the size of the vanes.

Vacuum quality is subdivided into ranges according to the technology required to achieve it or measure it. These ranges do not have universally agreed definitions, but a typical distribution is shown in the following table.[40][41] As we travel into orbit, outer space and ultimately intergalactic space, the pressure varies by several orders of magnitude.

Pressure ranges of each quality of vacuum in different units
Vacuum quality Torr Pa Atmosphere
Atmospheric pressure 760 1.013×105 1
Low vacuum 760 to 25 1×105 to 3×103 9.87×10−1 to 3×10−2
Medium vacuum 25 to 1×10−3 3×103 to 1×10−1 3×10−2 to 9.87×10−7
High vacuum 1×10−3 to 1×10−9 1×10−1 to 1×10−7 9.87×10−7 to 9.87×10−13
Ultra high vacuum 1×10−9 to 1×10−12 1×10−7 to 1×10−10 9.87×10−13 to 9.87×10−16
Extremely high vacuum < 1×10−12 < 1×10−10 < 9.87×10−16
Outer space 1×10−6 to < 1×10−17 1×10−4 to < 3×10−15 9.87×10−10 to < 2.96×10−20
Perfect vacuum 0 0 0

Relative versus absolute measurement

Vacuum is measured in units of pressure, typically as a subtraction relative to ambient atmospheric pressure on Earth. But the amount of relative measurable vacuum varies with local conditions. On the surface of Jupiter, where ground level atmospheric pressure is much higher than on Earth, much higher relative vacuum readings would be possible. On the surface of the moon with almost no atmosphere, it would be extremely difficult to create a measurable vacuum relative to the local environment.

Similarly, much higher than normal relative vacuum readings are possible deep in the Earth's ocean. A submarine maintaining an internal pressure of 1 atmosphere submerged to a depth of 10 atmospheres (98 metres; a 9.8 metre column of seawater has the equivalent weight of 1 atm) is effectively a vacuum chamber keeping out the crushing exterior water pressures, though the 1 atm inside the submarine would not normally be considered a vacuum.

Therefore, to properly understand the following discussions of vacuum measurement, it is important that the reader assumes the relative measurements are being done on Earth at sea level, at exactly 1 atmosphere of ambient atmospheric pressure.

Measurements relative to 1 atm

A glass McLeod gauge, drained of mercury

The SI unit of pressure is the pascal (symbol Pa), but vacuum is often measured in torrs, named for Torricelli, an early Italian physicist (1608–1647). A torr is equal to the displacement of a millimeter of mercury (mmHg) in a manometer with 1 torr equaling 133.3223684 pascals above absolute zero pressure. Vacuum is often also measured on the barometric scale or as a percentage of atmospheric pressure in bars or atmospheres. Low vacuum is often measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) or pascals (Pa) below standard atmospheric pressure. "Below atmospheric" means that the absolute pressure is equal to the current atmospheric pressure.

In other words, most low vacuum gauges that read, for example 50.79 Torr. Many inexpensive low vacuum gauges have a margin of error and may report a vacuum of 0 Torr but in practice this generally requires a two-stage rotary vane or other medium type of vacuum pump to go much beyond (lower than) 1 torr.

Measuring instruments

Many devices are used to measure the pressure in a vacuum, depending on what range of vacuum is needed.[47]

Hydrostatic gauges (such as the mercury column manometer) consist of a vertical column of liquid in a tube whose ends are exposed to different pressures. The column will rise or fall until its weight is in equilibrium with the pressure differential between the two ends of the tube. The simplest design is a closed-end U-shaped tube, one side of which is connected to the region of interest. Any fluid can be used, but mercury is preferred for its high density and low vapour pressure. Simple hydrostatic gauges can measure pressures ranging from 1 torr (100 Pa) to above atmospheric. An important variation is the McLeod gauge which isolates a known volume of vacuum and compresses it to multiply the height variation of the liquid column. The McLeod gauge can measure vacuums as high as 10−6 torr (0.1 mPa), which is the lowest direct measurement of pressure that is possible with current technology. Other vacuum gauges can measure lower pressures, but only indirectly by measurement of other pressure-controlled properties. These indirect measurements must be calibrated via a direct measurement, most commonly a McLeod gauge.[48]

The kenotometer is a particular type of hydrostatic gauge, typically used in power plants using steam turbines. The kenotometer measures the vacuum in the steam space of the condenser, that is, the exhaust of the last stage of the turbine.[49]

Mechanical or elastic gauges depend on a Bourdon tube, diaphragm, or capsule, usually made of metal, which will change shape in response to the pressure of the region in question. A variation on this idea is the capacitance manometer, in which the diaphragm makes up a part of a capacitor. A change in pressure leads to the flexure of the diaphragm, which results in a change in capacitance. These gauges are effective from 103 torr to 10−4 torr, and beyond.

Thermal conductivity gauges rely on the fact that the ability of a gas to conduct heat decreases with pressure. In this type of gauge, a wire filament is heated by running current through it. A thermocouple or Resistance Temperature Detector (RTD) can then be used to measure the temperature of the filament. This temperature is dependent on the rate at which the filament loses heat to the surrounding gas, and therefore on the thermal conductivity. A common variant is the Pirani gauge which uses a single platinum filament as both the heated element and RTD. These gauges are accurate from 10 torr to 10−3 torr, but they are sensitive to the chemical composition of the gases being measured.

Ion gauges are used in ultrahigh vacuum. They come in two types: hot cathode and cold cathode. In the hot cathode version an electrically heated filament produces an electron beam. The electrons travel through the gauge and ionize gas molecules around them. The resulting ions are collected at a negative electrode. The current depends on the number of ions, which depends on the pressure in the gauge. Hot cathode gauges are accurate from 10−3 torr to 10−10 torr. The principle behind cold cathode version is the same, except that electrons are produced in a discharge created by a high voltage electrical discharge. Cold cathode gauges are accurate from 10−2 torr to 10−9 torr. Ionization gauge calibration is very sensitive to construction geometry, chemical composition of gases being measured, corrosion and surface deposits. Their calibration can be invalidated by activation at atmospheric pressure or low vacuum. The composition of gases at high vacuums will usually be unpredictable, so a mass spectrometer must be used in conjunction with the ionization gauge for accurate measurement.[50]

Uses

Light bulbs contain a partial vacuum, usually backfilled with argon, which protects the tungsten filament

Vacuum is useful in a variety of processes and devices. Its first widespread use was in the incandescent light bulb to protect the filament from chemical degradation. The chemical inertness produced by a vacuum is also useful for electron beam welding, cold welding, vacuum packing and vacuum frying. Ultra-high vacuum is used in the study of atomically clean substrates, as only a very good vacuum preserves atomic-scale clean surfaces for a reasonably long time (on the order of minutes to days). High to ultra-high vacuum removes the obstruction of air, allowing particle beams to deposit or remove materials without contamination. This is the principle behind chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, and dry etching which are essential to the fabrication of semiconductors and optical coatings, and to surface science. The reduction of convection provides the thermal insulation of thermos bottles. Deep vacuum lowers the boiling point of liquids and promotes low temperature outgassing which is used in freeze drying, adhesive preparation, distillation, metallurgy, and process purging. The electrical properties of vacuum make electron microscopes and vacuum tubes possible, including cathode ray tubes. The elimination of air friction is useful for flywheel energy storage and ultracentrifuges.

This shallow water well pump reduces atmospheric air pressure inside the pump chamber. Atmospheric pressure extends down into the well, and forces water up the pipe into the pump to balance the reduced pressure. Above-ground pump chambers are only effective to a depth of approximately 9 meters due to the water column weight balancing the atmospheric pressure.

Vacuum-driven machines

Vacuums are commonly used to produce suction, which has an even wider variety of applications. The Newcomen steam engine used vacuum instead of pressure to drive a piston. In the 19th century, vacuum was used for traction on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's experimental atmospheric railway. Vacuum brakes were once widely used on trains in the UK but, except on heritage railways, they have been replaced by air brakes.

Manifold vacuum can be used to drive accessories on automobiles. The best-known application is the vacuum servo, used to provide power assistance for the brakes. Obsolete applications include vacuum-driven windscreen wipers and Autovac fuel pumps. Some aircraft instruments (Attitude Indicator (AI) and the Heading Indicator (HI)) are typically vacuum-powered, as protection against loss of all (electrically powered) instruments, since early aircraft often did not have electrical systems, and since there are two readily available sources of vacuum on a moving aircraft—the engine and an external venturi. Vacuum induction melting uses electromagnetic induction within a vacuum.

Maintaining a vacuum in the Condenser is an important aspect of the efficient operation of steam turbines. A steam jet ejector or liquid ring vacuum pump is used for this purpose. The typical vacuum maintained in the Condenser steam space at the exhaust of the turbine (also called Condenser Backpressure) is in the range 5 to 15 kPa (absolute), depending on the type of condenser and the ambient conditions.

Outgassing

Main article: Outgassing

Evaporation and sublimation into a vacuum is called outgassing. All materials, solid or liquid, have a small vapour pressure, and their outgassing becomes important when the vacuum pressure falls below this vapour pressure. In man-made systems, outgassing has the same effect as a leak and can limit the achievable vacuum. Outgassing products may condense on nearby colder surfaces, which can be troublesome if they obscure optical instruments or react with other materials. This is of great concern to space missions, where an obscured telescope or solar cell can ruin an expensive mission.

The most prevalent outgassing product in man-made vacuum systems is water absorbed by chamber materials. It can be reduced by desiccating or baking the chamber, and removing absorbent materials. Outgassed water can condense in the oil of rotary vane pumps and reduce their net speed drastically if gas ballasting is not used. High vacuum systems must be clean and free of organic matter to minimize outgassing.

Ultra-high vacuum systems are usually baked, preferably under vacuum, to temporarily raise the vapour pressure of all outgassing materials and boil them off. Once the bulk of the outgassing materials are boiled off and evacuated, the system may be cooled to lower vapour pressures and minimize residual outgassing during actual operation. Some systems are cooled well below room temperature by liquid nitrogen to shut down residual outgassing and simultaneously cryopump the system.

Pumping and ambient air pressure

Deep wells have the pump chamber down in the well close to the water surface, or in the water. A "sucker rod" extends from the handle down the center of the pipe deep into the well to operate the plunger. The pump handle acts as a heavy counterweight against both the sucker rod weight and the weight of the water column standing on the upper plunger up to ground level.
Main article: Vacuum pump

Fluids cannot generally be pulled, so a vacuum cannot be created by suction. Suction can spread and dilute a vacuum by letting a higher pressure push fluids into it, but the vacuum has to be created first before suction can occur. The easiest way to create an artificial vacuum is to expand the volume of a container. For example, the diaphragm muscle expands the chest cavity, which causes the volume of the lungs to increase. This expansion reduces the pressure and creates a partial vacuum, which is soon filled by air pushed in by atmospheric pressure.

To continue evacuating a chamber indefinitely without requiring infinite growth, a compartment of the vacuum can be repeatedly closed off, exhausted, and expanded again. This is the principle behind positive displacement pumps, like the manual water pump for example. Inside the pump, a mechanism expands a small sealed cavity to create a vacuum. Because of the pressure differential, some fluid from the chamber (or the well, in our example) is pushed into the pump's small cavity. The pump's cavity is then sealed from the chamber, opened to the atmosphere, and squeezed back to a minute size.

A cutaway view of a turbomolecular pump, a momentum transfer pump used to achieve high vacuum

The above explanation is merely a simple introduction to vacuum pumping, and is not representative of the entire range of pumps in use. Many variations of the positive displacement pump have been developed, and many other pump designs rely on fundamentally different principles. Momentum transfer pumps, which bear some similarities to dynamic pumps used at higher pressures, can achieve much higher quality vacuums than positive displacement pumps. Entrapment pumps can capture gases in a solid or absorbed state, often with no moving parts, no seals and no vibration. None of these pumps are universal; each type has important performance limitations. They all share a difficulty in pumping low molecular weight gases, especially hydrogen, helium, and neon.

The lowest pressure that can be attained in a system is also dependent on many things other than the nature of the pumps. Multiple pumps may be connected in series, called stages, to achieve higher vacuums. The choice of seals, chamber geometry, materials, and pump-down procedures will all have an impact. Collectively, these are called vacuum technique. And sometimes, the final pressure is not the only relevant characteristic. Pumping systems differ in oil contamination, vibration, preferential pumping of certain gases, pump-down speeds, intermittent duty cycle, reliability, or tolerance to high leakage rates.

In ultra high vacuum systems, some very "odd" leakage paths and outgassing sources must be considered. The water absorption of aluminium and palladium becomes an unacceptable source of outgassing, and even the adsorptivity of hard metals such as stainless steel or titanium must be considered. Some oils and greases will boil off in extreme vacuums. The permeability of the metallic chamber walls may have to be considered, and the grain direction of the metallic flanges should be parallel to the flange face.

The lowest pressures currently achievable in laboratory are about 10−13 torr (13 pPa).[51] However, pressures as low as 5×10−17 Torr (6.7 fPa) have been indirectly measured in a 4 K cryogenic vacuum system.[4] This corresponds to ≈100 particles/cm3.

Effects on humans and animals

See also: Space exposure
This painting, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768, depicts an experiment performed by Robert Boyle in 1660.

Humans and animals exposed to vacuum will lose consciousness after a few seconds and die of hypoxia within minutes, but the symptoms are not nearly as graphic as commonly depicted in media and popular culture. The reduction in pressure lowers the temperature at which blood and other body fluids boil, but the elastic pressure of blood vessels ensures that this boiling point remains above the internal body temperature of 37 °C.[52] Although the blood will not boil, the formation of gas bubbles in bodily fluids at reduced pressures, known as ebullism, is still a concern. The gas may bloat the body to twice its normal size and slow circulation, but tissues are elastic and porous enough to prevent rupture.[53] Swelling and ebullism can be restrained by containment in a flight suit. Shuttle astronauts wore a fitted elastic garment called the Crew Altitude Protection Suit (CAPS) which prevents ebullism at pressures as low as 2 kPa (15 Torr).[54] Rapid boiling will cool the skin and create frost, particularly in the mouth, but this is not a significant hazard.

Animal experiments show that rapid and complete recovery is normal for exposures shorter than 90 seconds, while longer full-body exposures are fatal and resuscitation has never been successful.[55] There is only a limited amount of data available from human accidents, but it is consistent with animal data. Limbs may be exposed for much longer if breathing is not impaired.[56] Robert Boyle was the first to show in 1660 that vacuum is lethal to small animals.

An experiment indicates that plants are able to survive in a low pressure environment (1.5 kPa) for about 30 minutes.[57][58]

During 1942, in one of a series of experiments on human subjects for the Luftwaffe, the Nazi regime experimented on prisoners in Dachau concentration camp by exposing them to low pressure.[59]

Cold or oxygen-rich atmospheres can sustain life at pressures much lower than atmospheric, as long as the density of oxygen is similar to that of standard sea-level atmosphere. The colder air temperatures found at altitudes of up to 3 km generally compensate for the lower pressures there.[56] Above this altitude, oxygen enrichment is necessary to prevent altitude sickness in humans that did not undergo prior acclimatization, and spacesuits are necessary to prevent ebullism above 19 km.[56] Most spacesuits use only 20 kPa (150 Torr) of pure oxygen. This pressure is high enough to prevent ebullism, but decompression sickness and gas embolisms can still occur if decompression rates are not managed.

Rapid decompression can be much more dangerous than vacuum exposure itself. Even if the victim does not hold his or her breath, venting through the windpipe may be too slow to prevent the fatal rupture of the delicate alveoli of the lungs.[56] Eardrums and sinuses may be ruptured by rapid decompression, soft tissues may bruise and seep blood, and the stress of shock will accelerate oxygen consumption leading to hypoxia.[60] Injuries caused by rapid decompression are called barotrauma. A pressure drop of 13 kPa (100 Torr), which produces no symptoms if it is gradual, may be fatal if it occurs suddenly.[56]

Some extremophile microrganisms, such as tardigrades, can survive vacuum for a period of days or weeks.[61]

Examples

See also: vacuum pump
Pressure (Pa or kPa) Pressure (Torr) Mean Free Path Molecules per cm3
Standard atmosphere, for comparison 101.325 kPa 760 66 nm 2.5×1019[62]
Vacuum cleaner approximately 80 kPa 600 70 nm 1019
Steam turbine exhaust (Condenser Backpressure) 9 kPa
liquid ring vacuum pump approximately 3.2 kPa 24 1.75 μm 1018
Mars atmosphere 1.155 kPa to 0.03 kPa (mean 0.6 kPa) 8.66 to 0.23
freeze drying 100 to 10 1 to 0.1 100 μm to 1 mm 1016 to 1015
Incandescent light bulb 10 to 1 0.1 to 0.01 1 mm to 1 cm 1015 to 1014
Thermos bottle 1 to 0.01 [1] 10−2 to 10−4 1 cm to 1 m 1014 to 1012
Earth thermosphere 1 Pa to 1×10−7 10−2 to 10−9 1 cm to 100 km 1014 to 107
Vacuum tube 1×10−5 to 1×10−8 10−7 to 10−10 1 to 1,000 km 109 to 106
Cryopumped MBE chamber 1×10−7 to 1×10−9 10−9 to 10−11 100 to 10,000 km 107 to 105
Pressure on the Moon approximately 1×10−9 10−11 10,000 km 4×105[63]
Interplanetary space     11[1]
Interstellar space     1[64]
Intergalactic space   10−6[1]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Chambers, Austin (2004). Modern Vacuum Physics. Boca Raton: CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-2438-6. OCLC 55000526.
  2. ↑ Harris, Nigel S. (1989). Modern Vacuum Practice. McGraw-Hill. p. 3. ISBN 0-07-707099-2.
  3. ↑ Campbell, Jeff (2005). Speed cleaning. p. 97. ISBN 1-59486-274-5. Note that 1 inch of water is ≈0.0025 atm.
  4. 1 2 Gabrielse, G.; Fei, X.; Orozco, L.; Tjoelker, R.; Haas, J.; Kalinowsky, H.; Trainor, T.; Kells, W. (1990). "Thousandfold improvement in the measured antiproton mass". Physical Review Letters 65 (11): 1317. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.65.1317.
  5. 1 2 Tadokoro, M. (1968). "A Study of the Local Group by Use of the Virial Theorem". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan 20: 230. Bibcode:1968PASJ...20..230T. This source estimates a density of 7×10−29 g/cm3 for the Local Group. An atomic mass unit is 1.66×10−24 g, for roughly 40 atoms per cubic meter.
  6. ↑ How to Make an Experimental Geissler Tube, Popular Science monthly, February 1919, Unnumbered page. Bonnier Corporation
  7. ↑ "What words in the English language contain two u's in a row?". Oxford Dictionaries Online. Retrieved 2011-10-23
  8. 1 2 Genz, Henning (1994). Nothingness, the Science of Empty Space (translated from German by Karin Heusch ed.). New York: Perseus Book Publishing (published 1999). ISBN 978-0-7382-0610-3. OCLC 48836264.
  9. ↑ Barrow, J.D. (2002). The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe. Vintage Series. Vintage. pp. 71–72, 77. ISBN 978-0-375-72609-5. LCCN 00058894.
  10. ↑ Davies, P. (1985). Superforce. A Touchstone Book. Simon & Schuster. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-671-60573-5. LCCN 84005473. What might appear to be empty space is, therefore, a seething ferment of virtual particles. A vacuum is not inert and featueless, but alive with throbbing energy and vitality. A 'real' particle such as an electron must always be viewed against this background of frenetic activity. When an electron moves through space, it is actually swimming in a sea of ghost particles of all varieties – virtual leptons, quarks, and messengers, entangled in a complex mêlée. The presence of the electron will distort this irreducible vacuum activity, and the distortion in turn reacts back on the electron. Even at rest, an electron is not at rest: it is being continually assaulted by all manner of other particles from the vacuum.
  11. ↑ Institute and Museum of the History of Science. Pompeii: Nature, Science, and Technology in a Roman Town
  12. ↑ Zahoor, Akram (2000). Muslim History: 570–1950 C.E. Gaithersburg, MD: AZP (ZMD Corporation). ISBN 978-0-9702389-0-0.
  13. ↑ Arabic and Islamic Natural Philosophy and Natural Science, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  14. ↑ El-Bizri, Nader (2007). "In Defence of the Sovereignty of Philosophy: Al-Baghdadi's Critique of Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrisation of Place". Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press) 17: 57–80. doi:10.1017/S0957423907000367.
  15. ↑ Dallal, Ahmad (2001–2002). "The Interplay of Science and Theology in the Fourteenth-century Kalam". From Medieval to Modern in the Islamic World, Sawyer Seminar at the University of Chicago. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
  16. ↑ Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64–69 (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
  17. ↑ Hassan, Ahmad Y. "The Origin of the Suction Pump: Al-Jazari 1206 A.D". Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  18. ↑ Donald Routledge Hill (1996), A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times, Routledge, pp. 143 & 150–2.
  19. ↑ Grant, Edward (1981). Much ado about nothing: theories of space and vacuum from the Middle Ages to the scientific revolution. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22983-8.
  20. 1 2 Barrow, John D. (2000). The book of nothing : vacuums, voids, and the latest ideas about the origins of the universe (1st American ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-09-928845-1. OCLC 46600561.
  21. ↑ "The World's Largest Barometer". Retrieved 2008-04-30.
  22. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica:Otto von Guericke
  23. ↑ Robert Hogarth Patterson, Essays in History and Art 10, 1862
  24. ↑ Pickering, W. H. (1912). "Solar system, the motion of the, relatively to the interstellar absorbing medium". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 72: 740. Bibcode:1912MNRAS..72..740P. doi:10.1093/mnras/72.9.740.
  25. 1 2 Werner S. Weiglhofer (2003). "§ 4.1 The classical vacuum as reference medium". In Werner S. Weiglhofer; Akhlesh Lakhtakia. Introduction to complex mediums for optics and electromagnetics. SPIE Press. pp. 28, 34. ISBN 978-0-8194-4947-4.
  26. ↑ Tom G. MacKay (2008). "Electromagnetic Fields in Linear Bianisotropic Mediums". In Emil Wolf. Progress in Optics 51. Elsevier. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-444-52038-8.
  27. ↑ Gilbert Grynberg; Alain Aspect; Claude Fabre (2010). Introduction to Quantum Optics: From the Semi-Classical Approach to Quantized Light. Cambridge University Press. p. 341. ISBN 0-521-55112-9. ...deals with the quantum vacuum where, in contrast to the classical vacuum, radiation has properties, in particular, fluctuations, with which one can associate physical effects.
  28. ↑ For a qualitative description of vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles, see Leonard Susskind (2006). The cosmic landscape: string theory and the illusion of intelligent design. Little, Brown and Co. pp. 60 ff. ISBN 0-316-01333-1.
  29. ↑ The relative permeability and permittivity of field-theoretic vacuums is described in Kurt Gottfried; Victor Frederick Weisskopf (1986). Concepts of particle physics 2. Oxford University Press. p. 389. ISBN 0-19-503393-0. and more recently in John F. Donoghue; Eugene Golowich; Barry R. Holstein (1994). Dynamics of the standard model. Cambridge University Press. p. 47. ISBN 0-521-47652-6. and also R. Keith Ellis; W. J. Stirling; B. R. Webber (2003). QCD and collider physics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 27–29. ISBN 0-521-54589-7. Returning to the vacuum of a relativistic field theory, we find that both paramagnetic and diamagnetic contributions are present. QCD vacuum is paramagnetic, while QED vacuum is diamagnetic. See Carlos A. Bertulani (2007). Nuclear physics in a nutshell. Princeton University Press. p. 26. ISBN 0-691-12505-8.
  30. ↑ "Speed of light in vacuum, c, c0". The NIST reference on constants, units, and uncertainty: Fundamental physical constants. NIST. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  31. ↑ Chattopadhyay, D. & Rakshit, P.C. (2004). Elements of Physics 1. New Age International. p. 577. ISBN 81-224-1538-5.
  32. ↑ "Electric constant, ε0". The NIST reference on constants, units, and uncertainty: Fundamental physical constants. NIST. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  33. ↑ "Magnetic constant, μ0". The NIST reference on constants, units, and uncertainty: Fundamental physical constants. NIST. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  34. ↑ "Characteristic impedance of vacuum, Z0". The NIST reference on constants, units, and uncertainty: Fundamental physical constants. NIST. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  35. ↑ Mackay, Tom G & Lakhtakia, Akhlesh (2008). "§ 3.1.1 Free space". In Emil Wolf. Progress in Optics 51. Elsevier. p. 143. ISBN 0-444-53211-0.
  36. ↑ For example, see Craig, D. P. & Thirunamachandran, T. (1998). Molecular Quantum Electrodynamics (Reprint of Academic Press 1984 ed.). Courier Dover Publications. p. 40. ISBN 0-486-40214-2.
  37. ↑ In effect, the dielectric permittivity of the vacuum of classical electromagnetism is changed. For example, see Zeidler, Eberhard (2011). "§ 19.1.9 Vacuum polarization in quantum electrodynamics". Quantum Field Theory III: Gauge Theory: A Bridge Between Mathematicians and Physicists. Springer. p. 952. ISBN 3-642-22420-2.
  38. ↑ Altarelli, Guido (2008). "Chapter 2: Gauge theories and the Standard Model". Elementary Particles: Volume 21/A of Landolt-Börnstein series. Springer. pp. 2–3. ISBN 3-540-74202-6. The fundamental state of minimum energy, the vacuum, is not unique and there are a continuum of degenerate states that altogether respect the symmetry...
  39. ↑ Squire, Tom (September 27, 2000). "U.S. Standard Atmosphere, 1976". Thermal Protection Systems Expert and Material Properties Database (NASA). Retrieved 2011-10-23
  40. ↑ American Vacuum Society. "Glossary". AVS Reference Guide. Retrieved 2006-03-15.
  41. ↑ National Physical Laboratory, UK. "What do 'high vacuum' and 'low vacuum' mean? (FAQ – Pressure)". Retrieved 2012-04-22.
  42. ↑ BS 2951: Glossary of Terms Used in Vacuum Technology. Part I. Terms of General Application. British Standards Institution, London, 1969.
  43. ↑ DIN 28400: Vakuumtechnik Bennenungen und Definitionen, 1972.
  44. ↑ "Vacuum Measurements". Pressure Measurement Division. Setra Systems, Inc. 1998. Archived from the original on 2011-01-01.
  45. ↑ "A look at vacuum pumps 14-9". eMedicine. McNally Institute. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
  46. ↑ "1500 Torr Diaphragm Transmitter" (PDF). Vacuum Transmitters for Diaphragm & Pirani Sensors 24 VDC Power. Vacuum Research Corporation. 2003-07-26. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
  47. ↑ John H., Moore; Christopher Davis; Michael A. Coplan & Sandra Greer (2002). Building Scientific Apparatus. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-4007-1. OCLC 50287675.
  48. ↑ Beckwith, Thomas G.; Roy D. Marangoni & John H. Lienhard V (1993). "Measurement of Low Pressures". Mechanical Measurements (Fifth ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. pp. 591–595. ISBN 0-201-56947-7.
  49. ↑ "Kenotometer Vacuum Gauge". Edmonton Power Historical Foundation. 22 November 2013. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  50. ↑ Robert M. Besançon, ed. (1990). "Vacuum Techniques". The Encyclopedia of Physics (3rd ed.). Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. pp. 1278–1284. ISBN 0-442-00522-9.
  51. ↑ Ishimaru, H (1989). "Ultimate Pressure of the Order of 10−13 torr in an Aluminum Alloy Vacuum Chamber". Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology 7 (3–II): 2439–2442. doi:10.1116/1.575916.
  52. ↑ Landis, Geoffrey (7 August 2007). "Human Exposure to Vacuum". geoffreylandis.com. Retrieved 2006-03-25.
  53. ↑ Billings, Charles E. (1973). "Chapter 1) Barometric Pressure". In Parker, James F.; West, Vita R. Bioastronautics Data Book (Second ed.). NASA. p. 5. NASA SP-3006. Retrieved 2012-09-23. 33.1 MB PDF
  54. ↑ Webb P. (1968). "The Space Activity Suit: An Elastic Leotard for Extravehicular Activity". Aerospace Medicine 39 (4): 376–383. PMID 4872696.
  55. ↑ Cooke, J. P.; Bancroft, R. W. (1966). "Some cardiovascular responses in anesthetized dogs during repeated decompressions to a near-vacuum". Aerospace medicine 37 (11): 1148–52. PMID 5972265.
  56. 1 2 3 4 5 Harding, Richard M. (1989). Survival in Space: Medical Problems of Manned Spaceflight. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-00253-2. OCLC 18744945..
  57. ↑ Wheeler, R.M.; Wehkamp, C.A.; Stasiak, M.A.; Dixon, M.A.; Rygalov, V.Y. (2011). "Plants survive rapid decompression: Implications for bioregenerative life support". Advances in Space Research 47 (9): 1600–7. Bibcode:2011AdSpR..47.1600W. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2010.12.017.
  58. ↑ Ferl, RJ; Schuerger, AC; Paul, AL; Gurley, WB; Corey, K; Bucklin, R (2002). "Plant adaptation to low atmospheric pressures: Potential molecular responses". Life Support & Biosphere Science 8 (2): 93–101. PMID 11987308.
  59. ↑ Geidobler, Carolin (31 January 2004). "Die Menschenversuche im KZ Dachau" [The human experiments at Dachau] (PDF) (in German). pp. 15–20. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
  60. ↑ Czarnik, Tamarack R. (1999). "EBULLISM AT 1 MILLION FEET: Surviving Rapid/Explosive Decompression". unpublished review by Landis, Geoffrey A. geoffreylandis.
  61. ↑ Jönsson, K. Ingemar; Rabbow, Elke; Schill, Ralph O.; Harms-Ringdahl, Mats & Rettberg, Petra (9 September 2008). "Tardigrades survive exposure to space in low Earth orbit". Current Biology 18 (17): R729–R731. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.06.048. PMID 18786368.
  62. ↑ Computed using "1976 Standard Atmosphere Properties" calculator. Retrieved 2012-01-28
  63. ↑ Öpik, E. J. (1962). "The lunar atmosphere". Planetary and Space Science 9 (5): 211. Bibcode:1962P&SS....9..211O. doi:10.1016/0032-0633(62)90149-6.
  64. ↑ University of New Hampshire Experimental Space Plasma Group. "What is the Interstellar Medium". The Interstellar Medium, an online tutorial. Retrieved 2006-03-15.

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